The Roald Dahl Children's Funny Prize

Michael Rosen set up the Roald Dahl Children's Funny Prize last year, and the results of this year's prize have just been announced. I missed the news yesterday on the web, so was reading about it in the paper over breakfast, and that was a mistake. Philip Ardagh won the 7-14 age category with Grubtown Tales: Stinking Rich and Just Plain Sticky. Here's an extract:

"You know how people go on about greasy hair? Well, Manual Org's hair was so greasy that it was more grease than it was hair, so it would be more accurate to have called it hairy grease than greasy hair."

When you can add the memory of smell to this, as I can as the mother of a teenager who used to be allergic to washing, the combination is stomach churning. (In son's defence, I can say that since he discovered romance he is clean as clean).

Sam Lloyd won the six and below category with Mr Pusskins, the story of a cat who accidentally wins a prize at a cat show. I think six year olds are just as capable of taking the stomach churning in their stride as older children, but hopefully Mr Pusskins is easier stuff for the reading-the-bedtime-story-market.